


Moirai Dissolved

by The3rdTrumpeteer



Category: The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Violence, will add more characters and such as the story progresses!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25471060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The3rdTrumpeteer/pseuds/The3rdTrumpeteer
Summary: "A painter unfamiliar to any of us has arrived in the village. He claims he is searching for the Great Fairy's Fountain, but that's near where the village's spirit protector resides. We must make sure the outsider doesn't learn of the location of the fountain... or the two shrines near it."-Anonymous Father of TwoWhat if Pikango wanted more than just a photograph of the Great Fairy's Fountain?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Moirai Dissolved

Link reaches the base of Mount Lanayru in a matter of hours. The East Gate wasn’t particularly difficult to find, especially with Pikango’s help, but the number of monsters along the Promenade made the journey a little more perilous than he would have liked.

He emerges on the other side of the massive stone walkway a little worse for wear (avoiding some of the monsters was more difficult than expected… and the run-in with that Yiga footsoldier near the West Gate certainly didn’t help), but alive. 

The air is cool, but not yet chilly, though Link suspects that will change as he gets closer to the mountain. It’s huge, with pillars of ice just barely visible near its peak. A formidable sight for sure, made even more intimidating by the fact that it is one unfamiliar to Link, which bothers him to no end. 

It’s unfathomable to him that he remembers absolutely nothing about the world around him, yet he knows he has to have been born and grown up in Hyrule. He knows he must have had a mother and father, and that they’re probably long gone by now. He knows something bad enough happened to him that he woke up a hundred years later in the Shrine of Resurrection (that’s what it’s labeled as on the Sheikah Slate, anyway, and what Purah called it). And he hates that he has no idea what happened.

Link decides that if he dwells too much on the subject, his head might just implode, so he focuses on the task at hand. He walks back and forth a bit in front of the gate until the picture aligns with what he sees before him.

And then the memory hits him like a Bokoblin’s club.

_ He’s walking down the mountain path, trailing behind a girl in a white dress. _

Princess Zelda _ , his mind supplies. _

_ Zelda looks positively downtrodden, and her shoulders slump as she and Link approach the East Gate, where a group of people are waiting. _

_ “Well?” The first to speak is a large… rock?  _ Daruk _ , says the voice in Link’s head. “Don’t keep us in suspense. How’d everything go up there on the mountain?” _

_ Zelda just shakes her head. Link pretends he doesn’t see the tears in her eyes. _

_ “So you didn’t feel anything?” The tall bird-person-- _ Revali _ , whispers the voice--asks. “No power at all?” _

_ Zelda shakes her head again. “I’m sorry, no.” _

_ “Then let’s move on.” The woman who looks at Zelda with what Link would call fondness could be a Hylian, except she is tall and tan and violently redheaded.  _ Urbosa _ , the ever-helpful voice says. “You’ve done all you could. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t be of any help. After all-” She gestures vaguely up at the mountain. “-it’s not like your last shot was up there on Mount Lanayru. Anything could finally spark the power to seal Ganon away. We just have to keep looking for that… thing.” _

_ “That’s kind of you.” Zelda’s voice is soft and shaky, and her head is bowed. _

_ “If I may…” The fish-girl-- _ Mipha _ , says the voice--is very pretty, Link thinks. “I thought you… Well, I’m not sure how to put this into words… I’m actually quite embarrassed to say it.” She smiles softly. “But I was thinking about what I do when I’m healing. You know, what usually goes through my mind…” If Link didn’t know better, he would think she was looking at him. “It helps when I think--when I think about--” _

_ The ground suddenly shakes violently. Link leans forward instinctively to catch Zelda as she stumbles. Revali beats his wings a couple of times before soaring into the sky. He calls down a warning a moment later and hits the ground. He seems speechless, and it isn’t hard to guess why. _

_ Something gigantic has--for lack of a better word--exploded from Hyrule Castle. Even from such a distance, the ghostly, smoky form of Calamity Ganon can be clearly seen, raging below a massive storm. Pink bolts of malicious lightning shoot from the pitch-black cloud. The demon swoops around the castle, once, twice, before letting out a deafening roar, and the earth shakes again. _

_ Urbosa’s expression is hard. “It’s here.” _

_ “This is it, then,” Daruk says. _

_ “Are you sure?” Mipha asks. _

_ “Positive.” Revali beats his wings again, but doesn’t yet take off. _

_ Zelda’s eyes are wide. “It’s awake. Ganon!” _

_ Daruk addresses the group, shouldering his Boulder Breaker. “Let’s stop wasting time! We’re gonna need everything we got to take that thing down! Now, Champions! To your Divine Beasts!” He points toward the castle. “Show that swirling swine who’s boss! Link will need to meet Ganon head on when we attack! This needs to be a unified assault!” He turns to Link. “Little guy! You get to Hyrule Castle. You can count on us for support, but it’s up to you to pound Ganon into oblivion!” _

_ Urbosa puts her hands on Zelda’s shoulders. “Come. We should go,” she says to the princess. “We need to get you someplace safe.” _

_ But Zelda pulls away from Urbosa’s gentle grip. “No! I am not a child anymore! I may not be much use on the battlefield… But there must…” She looks frustrated but determined. “There must be something I can do to help!” _

The scene suddenly sparks and darkens at the edges, and Link is wrenched back to the present with a gasp. He puts the Sheikah Slate away, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Link wipes them away with a frustrated sigh; why is he crying? He doesn’t know any of those people. Well, he does, but he  _ doesn’t _ … at least, not yet. He knows that they were struck down during the Great Calamity. But he doesn’t remember how. Or why. Or-

He’s still crying. Link thanks whatever deity currently presiding over the world that he’s alone. He takes a few minutes to collect himself and look around the area for any supplies he might be able to use. There are a few peppers growing on a clump of bushes behind the gate, and Link picks them even though he doesn’t think he’ll be venturing onto Mount Lanayru anytime soon. Then he sorts through his pack, fastens it shut, and pulls back out the Sheikah Slate.

Link decides to teleport himself to the shrine near Kakariko Village instead of walking back; the last thing he wants is to run into that Yiga soldier again. He doesn’t think the soldier is dead, and he doesn’t want to risk another fight when he’s already hurt.

He tells Impa what he saw at the East Gate, and though she seems saddened by the memory, her expression quickly fades back into one of what Link thinks must be well-practiced indifference.

“Well, no matter,” she says, shifting on her pillow, “now that you have seen some of the princess’s memories, you must have started to remember certain things.”

Link nods. Since his experience at the East Gate, he can’t get the faces of the people he saw out of his head. What bothers him is that he knows their names, somehow, but still remembers absolutely nothing about them.

“Link?” Impa’s voice startles him. “Here. I will hand this over to you now, before I forget.”

Impa holds out a bundle of bright blue fabric, and Link knows what it is even before he sees the embroidery stitched across the front and hem of the garment. Something inside of him stirs as he takes the tunic.

“This is something of yours that I have been keeping safe, by request of the princess,” Impa says. “This clothing was specially made for you when you became a Champion. Please handle it with care.”

_ Champion _ . The word means nothing and somehow also everything. Link stares at the tunic in his hands and can feel a sense of purpose bubbling inside him, though it frustrates him that he still knows so little about his quest, both past and present. He thanks Impa, who nods at him, tells him to be careful, and returns to her meditation.

Link folds the tunic into the pack he bought at the general store (he’ll change into it before he leaves Kakariko) and turns to leave, but something on a table in the corner of the room catches his eye. He realizes it’s a book, opened to a page covered in short, handwritten paragraphs.

“Wh-what are you looking at?” Paya is watching him, her heirloom-studying duties momentarily forgotten, and when Link waves her over, she blushes even as she obliges. She looks over Link’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s the Journal of Various Worries. It’s a journal that the people of the village use to write down their worries or problems. Anonymously, of course. You can read it if you wish.”

Link flips through a few pages. Not much catches his eye (he hasn’t had much time to interact with the residents of Kakariko Village, yet, so many of the aliases mean nothing to him) until he reaches a section written by  _ Anonymous Father of Two _ . 

_ A painter unfamiliar to any of us has arrived in the village… Great Fairy’s Fountain… We must make sure the outsider doesn’t learn the location of the fountain… or the two shrines near it. _

Link has spoken to the painter--Pikango, he thinks his name was--only once, when he gave Link a clue about the Lanayru East Gate after Link… showed him a picture of the Great Fairy’s Fountain he had opened. Oh.

“Link? Is something wrong?” Paya frowns at him with concern.

Link shakes his head. He gives Paya what he hopes is a reassuring smile and leaves the house. He walks down the stairs quickly. Surely, there’s no need to worry. After all, Pikango seemed perfectly pleasant, and he wasn’t even all that interested in the fountain anymore after Link showed him the picture. He has only been awake a few days, but he’s found that many people are suspicious of outsiders (as they probably should be), and that paranoia is sometimes unfounded.

He remembers Cado’s concerns about the Yiga Clan and decides that, perhaps, some paranoia isn’t so unfounded, after all. The footsoldier near Mount Lanayru certainly wasn’t a figment of Link’s imagination.

Speaking of Cado, the Sheikah is still stationed at the bottom of the stairs, chatting amiably with Dorian.

“How are you today, Link?” Cado asks with a friendly wave.

“Can I ask you something?” 

Cado raises an eyebrow but nods. “Of course. What would you like to know?”

“Can you tell me more about the Yiga Clan?” At Link’s question, Cado frowns and glances at Dorian, who is wearing a similar expression. “I was attacked earlier. I want to be prepared.”

“Attacked?” Dorian says, sounding angry. “Near the village?”

Link nods. “Just before the Lanayru West Gate.”

“They never get that close,” Dorian says. “And attacking people in broad daylight? It’s risky. They’re getting bolder.”

“He wasn’t dressed as a Yiga soldier at first, either,” Link says. “He was disguised as a Hylian. But then he asked me about... joining the Clan? And when I refused, he tried to kill me.”

“So they could truly be anyone, then,” Cado says. “We must continue to be vigilant. Link, I know I have warned you of the Yiga Clan before, but you must remember, they are uncaring and merciless.”

“They’re murderers,” Dorian mutters. “Spineless cowards-”

“They’re dangerous, is what Dorian means,” Cado interrupts, with a sharp glance toward his fellow Sheikah. “We don’t know what they’re planning, but we know it has to do with Calamity Ganon, and that is why we can’t be too careful.”

“I’ll let you know if I see anything else,” Link says.

“Stay safe, Link,” Dorian says. He puts a hand on Link’s shoulder. “Please.”

“Of course.” Link decides to ignore the slight shake he thinks he hears in Dorian’s voice. “You two stay safe, too.” He shifts his pack on his back and starts toward the path leading from the village and toward the shrine. He still has his suspicions about Pikango, and the last place he saw the painter was halfway to the Great Fairy’s Fountain, when Link showed him the photograph he had taken of the place.

Link walks past the shrine and into the woods. The sun is still relatively high in the sky, and Link thinks he might teleport to Hateno Village tonight and head to the nearest waypoint on the Sheikah Slate map tomorrow morning.

Link can see the glow of the fountain now. He can’t yet see Pikango, but for all he knows, the man might not even be there-

A branch snaps a few feet behind Link, and that’s all the warning he gets before something solid wraps around his throat and _ squeezes _ . Link struggles for all he’s worth, but he’s been taken by surprise, and his vision is already getting hazy around the edges. Someone grabs both his arms and holds them out and away from his body and he can’t reach his sword or his bow or even the knife he picked up off a dead Lizalfos back on the Great Plateau.

Everything is graying out now, and Link is suddenly too tired to struggle. His eyes begin to close of their own accord. A person-like blur appears in front of him, but he can’t make out any features. 

“Don’t kill him,” a voice says, and Link thinks it might be coming from the blur. “Not yet. We need him to open the fountains.”

He has definitely heard that voice before, Link thinks as he loses consciousness.

* * *

Link wakes with a splitting headache and an acute sense of panic. He’s sitting down, and he can feel without moving too much that his hands are tied tightly behind him, lashed around a rough wooden pole that digs into his back with every breath. He still has his boots, but his pack and the leather chestpiece from his Hylian armor are definitely gone, and his Sheikah Slate - his anxiety skyrockets when he realizes he can’t pinpoint its soft blue glow near his hip.

It’s too dark to see anything, and the air is hot and stale. Link hasn’t had much of a chance to explore past the Great Plateau yet, and he remembers very little about his past, but he’s fairly certain he’s not anywhere near Kakariko Village anymore.

So where  _ is _ he?

Somewhere in front of him a door creaks open, and there’s a tiny flash of light as a lantern is lit mere inches from Link’s face. When his eyes adjust a few moments later, he jumps as the lantern illuminates a white, expressionless mask with a blood-red eye painted in the center.

“So this is the boy who can supposedly defeat Calamity Ganon,” the Yiga footsoldier says. “Scared as a little bunny, with no darkness-sealing sword in sight. Pathetic.”

Link stays silent, staring the soldier down as best he can when he can’t see their face.

“Got nothing to say?” The soldier sets the lantern aside before leaning forward and grabbing Link’s face roughly with a red-gloved hand. “We can fix that.”

Link kicks out instinctively and the soldier yelps, letting go of Link’s face to hold their knee. Link doesn’t have time to revel in his victory before a fist snaps his head to the side. His jaw burns, and he blinks startled tears from his eyes.

“You Hylian rat.” The soldier seizes a fistful of Link’s hair and uses the leverage to slam the boy’s head into the pole behind him. There are still stars in Link’s vision when a kick to his stomach knocks the wind out of him. “You better be thankful you’re useful, or I would have gutted you like a fish just for that.”

Useful? Link doesn’t like the sound of that. Perhaps the Yiga know about his quest, but they’re trying to  _ stop _ him from defeating Calamity Ganon. So what possible use could they have for him?

“How do you open the Fairy Fountains, boy?” The soldier asks.

Oh.  _ That’s _ what they want him for. Link remembers, fuzzily, the familiar voice he heard back in the woods near Kakariko Village, the one talking about the fountains.

He only shakes his head, immediately regretting it when his vision swims with pain. And then the soldier backhands him,  _ hard _ , which doesn’t help his headache.

“I said, how do you open the Fairy Fountains?” The soldier grabs Link’s hair again and wrenches his head up until Link gasps. “You did it once. In Kakariko. Where’s the Great Fairy?”

That question confuses Link. “She’s…” It’s hard to speak through the pain of the grip on his hair. “She’s in the fountain. It’s  _ her _ fountain.”

“Do you take me for a fool, boy?” The soldier slams Link’s head into the pole behind him again, and Link groans when he feels warmth trickle sluggishly down the back of his neck. “We know she’s in the fountain. What we want to know is how to  _ get her out _ .”

“I won’t…” Wow, his head  _ hurts _ . “I won’t help you. You’re wasting… you’re wasting your time.”

The soldier growls and releases Link’s hair. They pull his fist back and Link braces himself for a blow he’s sure will knock him out-

“Kriro, that’s enough for now.” At the sound of the voice, the soldier--Kriro, apparently--sighs and lowers their fist, muttering another threat at Link before standing up and backing away from him.

“Yes, Master Kohga,” they say. 

Through his blurry vision, Link can make out two people standing in front of him, both illuminated by the lantern that still sits on the ground. One is another Yiga soldier--Link assumes this is Master Kohga--though he’s taller and… pudgier than any of the others Link has encountered thus far. The other is…

“Pikango?” Link whispers. He’s suddenly angry (though something in his mind tells him he was suspicious of the Sheikah for a good reason), and he pulls futilely at his binds. “But you helped me! I thought you were on our side!”

Pikango looks nervous, his eyes darting back and forth between Link and Master Kohga. “I-I’m sorry, Link. I didn’t want to help them, but they found out I was looking for the fountains, and they threatened to kill me if I didn’t tell them about you!”

“And tell us, he did.” Kohga chuckles and approaches Link, who shrinks back against the pole to which he is bound. “You know, at first I didn’t think that you were the so-called ‘Hero’. A short, scrawny thing like you? No Sword that Seals the Darkness in your possession?” He pauses and pulls something from a pouch on his hip. “But then I found this in your bag, and I realized the rumors must be true. The boy who can supposedly beat Ganon has returned.”

Kohga holds the item up, and Link sees that it’s his Champion’s tunic. Proof that he’s the Hero from a century before.

Link glares at Kohga in a way he hopes is intimidating, but the Yiga leader seems unaffected. Instead, he puts a hand on Pikango’s shoulder--the Sheikah flinches almost imperceptibly, but Link can just see the way his body shakes--and steers him from the room.

“Make him talk,” Kohga says to Kriro. “If he won’t, well, I suppose we’ll have to find other ways to convince him.” With that, Kohga walks away from the light of the lantern, and Link hears the door shut.

Kriro looks at Link (well, Link  _ thinks _ Kriro looks at him) and cracks their knuckles.

“So tell me,  _ Hero _ .” The word slides from Kriro’s tongue like an insult. “How do we open the fountains?”

Link sighs. This isn’t going to go well for him. He shakes his head, and Kriro pulls back their fist. This time, no one is there to stop them.

When Link finally passes out, he decides to count it as a blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about this the first time I found the Journal of Various Worries (embarrassingly, I had played the game through and beaten Ganon twice before I realized there was another little book to read in Impa's house - we love having poor observation skills). I always thought Pikango was just a little suspicious.


End file.
